U.S. Pat. No. 3,111,511 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,429,864 both disclose polymerizations of ethylene using the combination of a rare earth metal halide and an organometallic compound. Many of these prior art catalyst systems have relatively low activity and, as a result, research continues in an effort to improve the catalyst systems.
The present invention is concerned with new high productivity catalysts which employ rare earth metal halides as one of the catalyst components for the production of polymers from olefins. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an improved polymerization catalyst.
A further object of this invention is to provide an improved process for the production of olefin polymers. Still another object of the present invention is to provide a method for producing a new rare earth metal halide based catalyst. Other objects, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the specification and the appended claims.